The UAE is known for seeing and experiencing the biggest, the best, the most opulent, the most unique! Unusually not so many people know about Dubai’s Pearl Museum and it’s display of one of the world’s largest collections located in Emirates NBD on Baniyas Road in Dubai.
Preservation of the UAE culture and heritage is at the heart of the Group and in addition to supporting various initiatives that aim to preserve the UAE culture, Emirates NBD launched the first pearl museum in the region in 2003.
All the pearls exhibited there belonged to one private person, Sultan Al Owais (1925-2000). It was his father, Ali Bin Abdullah Al Owais, a pearl trader of the Shamsi tribe of Sharjah, who started to collect the pearls and also invested to establish a financial institution to serve local needs. He did not survive to see his dream come true but his son, Sultan, completed the mission when he became the first chairman of National Bank of Dubai in 1963 and he has continued to collect pearls.
Sultan Al Owais kept this priceless collection out of nostalgia for a way of life which has now vanished from the Gulf. His wish was that the pearls should be available to remind people of the origins of the Emirates and what life was like before the discovery of oil.
By the time of his demise in January 2000, Sultan Al Owais owned one of the largest pearl collections in the world and he gifted it to the people of the Gulf under the custodianship of the National Bank of Dubai. The Pearl Museum was inaugurated in 2003, on the National Bank of Dubai’s 40th anniversary. The bank is known now as Emirates NBD. Along with the magnificent collections of pearls as sole pieces or jewellry made of these materials, the museum portrays the lives of well know divers and sailors and the instruments they used during the discovery of pearls and other precious materials from the interiors of the oceans.
Visits at the museum are by appointment only and they will allow a maximum number of 21 visitors with a minimum 7 people.(If less; you can join another group of people depending on the tours availability). The tour guide joins every group for presenting the museum.
Because it is not only about the pearls themselves, it is also about the history of the pearl divers and merchants of Arabia and also about the origin of UAE and how life was before the oil boom. The discovery of oil ended the “pearl age” in the Gulf. The beauty of the pearls is given also by the water the oysters grow in. That’s way, the warm, shallow water of the Gulf helped to produce ones of the most beautiful pearls in the world.
And they reached destinations all over the world, from Bombay to New York. One interesting thing is that in the Gulf men didn’t use to wear pearls, like in the other parts of the world. This was a privilege only for women. The history of the Gulf is closely linked to the pearls. The “Dive” was the only source of income for many men over the centuries. It was only one trip every year with for about four months and the share of the catch had to sustain their families for the rest of the year.
Equipment and pictures from the trips are also displayed at the museum. And even if the exhibits are just maybe 100 years old, the pearls and their origin became subject of myths and legends hundreds of years ago. And in the end I will tell you an ancient Arab legend: “When the pure light of the full moon shimmers across the sea, oysters rise to the surface and caressed by the waves, open their shells to swallow a drop of silvery night dew. From this magical union, pearls are born”.
Remember, you can visit the museum only with the permission of Emirates NBD sought in advance. Contact through the website Location: Emirates NBD 10 Baniyas Road, Dubai Timings: 9:00am – 5:00pm
Article publised on Fujairah Observer Magazine October 2019
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